The Green Queen hates to throw anything away. She’s always thinking, “how can I reuse, recycle or repurpose this?” And even when it comes to a worn out swimsuit or two, she doesn’t want to throw them in the trash.
Posted in clothes, eco holidays
Tagged Homemade Hearts, Sustainable Love, Valentine's Hearts
As happens this time every year, Recycla and her family are starting to get holiday party invitations in the mail. At this point, her family has one afternoon open house, one evening neighborhood party, a New Year’s Day open house, one holiday concert, and the potential for one or two more events. (These are all family-centric events; the invitations that are not usually get declined. After all, a big part of the holidays is being with one’s loved ones.)
Attending holiday parties means that everyone in Recycla’s house needs appropriate outfits to wear. While this could be an expensive undertaking, it doesn’t have to be.
Posted in clothes, eco holidays, eco kids, living green on a budget
As you are preparing for the start of the new school year, the chances are that you have old stuff that you need to deal with, including old crayons and outgrown sneakers. The Eco Women are here to help! Even if you don’t have school-age children, you might find a few useful tips here too.
If your jeans are too tattered to pass along to someone else, consider using them for crafting projects (just Google “blue jean crafts”) or see this great blog post. If the jeans are beyond the help of even a good craft project, you can recycle them. Some Whole Foods stores collect jeans and you can also check Earth 911 to discover the options near you.
And what about all those old t-shirts? The Eco Women like using them for cleaning rags. They’re also great as packing material if you need to store or shop something fragile. Or tear them into strips and use them as garden ties for tomatoes, roses, and more.
You probably have plenty of old sneakers cluttering your hall closet. Can they be washed and passed on to someone else? If not, see if a local shoe store collects old sneakers to be recycled. If there is no local option, there is always the Nike Reuse-A-Shoe Program, which takes old shoes and recycles them into new things, including new apparel or part of an athletic surface, such as a track or playground.
For some reason, Recycla’s daughters have several backpacks, even though the girls reuse their school backpacks from year to year. If you have extra backpacks that aren’t getting used, consider donating them to a local school, where they can be given to a student who can’t afford to buy a backpack. You might also check with local non-profits, such as homeless shelters and other places that provide a safe haven from an unsafe domestic environments. Plenty of folks (including adults) need a good bag for holding their possessions.
If you have old composition notebooks that still have some paper in them, use the paper for notes and lists around the house. Old crayons can easily be recycled. Old pencil boxes have plenty of new uses, including as traveling art kits for kids and mini sewing kits.
The important thing to remember as you deal with old stuff is that there’s a chance it can be re-purposed in a creative way or passed along to someone who can use it. Barring that, there could be a way to recycle those items and keep them out of landfills. Do your best to keep stuff out of the trash.
All of the Eco Women are mothers who have years of back-to-school shopping under their superhero belts. They know how to shop sales and find ways to keep costs low.
One area that has the potential for being very expensive is kids’ clothes. You can’t keep kids from growing — nor would the Eco Women want to — and they constantly need new sneakers, jeans, socks, and more.
Before you go clothes shopping, shop your own house first. Have your kids clean out their closets and dressers and try on everything from last year. Make lists of what they have and what they need. (For example, Recycla’s younger daughter must have two dozen t-shirts in her dresser, so there’s no need to buy new ones.) If you have younger kids who can use the clothes, great. If you don’t, pass along the old stuff to someone who can use them, whether it’s a younger cousin or friend or a local non-profit. For more ideas on what to do with those old clothes, see this post that Enviro Girl wrote last year.
After you’ve cleaned our your child’s closet and dresser, take a look at that list you made and think about the gaps that need filling. (For example: One of Recycla’s daughters is down to just one pair of jeans, so she needs to get another pair or two.) And think about the amounts of clothes that you buy. Don’t just go shopping blindly; instead, decide how many pairs of jeans will be sufficient for your child. The numbers on your list will be determined not only by your budget, but also how often your child will wear the clothes and how often you do laundry. So, if your child wears a uniform to school, the fact is, she won’t need quite so many non-uniform shirts and pants.
For those of you with kids who wear uniforms to school, find out if your school offers a uniform swap so that parents can pass along the clothes their children have outgrown and also look for larger sizes that fit. And even if your child doesn’t wear a uniform to school, you might check with other parents to see if anyone has clothes they can swap with you. For more information on clothing swaps, check out Enviro Girl’s helpful post.
Your lists are made and you’re ready to go shopping, now what? The easiest thing is to just head to your closest mall and start spending money, but if you are really looking to keep things within a certain budget, you’ll want to take a look at your local consignment shops, of which the Eco Women are big fans, and also thrift stores, such as the Salvation Army and Goodwill. You might not find everything on your list, but the chances are you’ll find some things, such as jeans, which always seem to be in good supply.
If you have some time and energy, you should also check out local garage sales (also known as tag sales, yard sales, and/or rummage sales) because those are always a good source of kids’ clothes, particularly in the smaller sizes.
Another place to shop is eBay. Some sellers will offer kids clothes in lots, such as all of a particular Gymboree girls’ line in size 5, which is a great way to maximize your dollar and your time. Recycla has also had good luck finding good winter coats for her daughters on eBay, including a last year, when she found a classic wool winter coat that originally retailed for around $300 and which Recycla got for well under $100, including shipping.
As you shop, you will want to think about quality vs. quantity. For example, Recycla doesn’t spend a lot on kids’ underwear and socks because those are items that end up in tatters or lost and don’t get handed down. For her girls’ bigger ticket items, such as winter coats, she wants quality, as those coats will be what keep her girls warm for months at a time.
One final thing to consider: In spite of what the ads might suggest, your child does not need a full fall/winter wardrobe in order to start school. With schools starting in August and September, most kids will need either their summer wardrobes or their school uniforms, not sweaters and coats. Hold off on buying those items and wait to see if any sales crop up in September and October. The chances are, they will.
Tell the Eco Women: How do you save money on clothes shopping — for kids or adults?
Posted in 3 Rs, clothes, eco kids, living green on a budget
Recycla learned a very important lesson this week. Actually, it’s a lesson she had already learned once, but apparently it didn’t stick the first time.
Recycla has been having some laundry woes this spring, in the form of clothes that still smell bad even after they’ve been washed. Specifically, her running gear, her husband’s soccer and biking gear, and her kids’ athletic clothes. After discussing things with her running friends on Twitter, she decided to try some new laundry detergents to deal with the stinkle.
A few years ago, Recycla switched from conventional laundry detergents and experimented with different organic versions. Conventional brands contain harsh chemicals and strong scents that are bad for humans and the environment. And, in Recycla’s household, both she and one of her daughters have very sensitive skin and other allergies, so they have to be careful with what they use on their skin and their clothes.
Recycla’s favorite eco laundry detergents are Zum, Seventh Generation, and Method. Unfortunately, Recycla’s husband does not like these detergents and does not feel that they do a sufficient job of cleaning the family’s dirty clothes, sheets, and towels, so there has been a back-and-forth tug o’ war between husband and wife over laundry matters for the past few years. For a while, they compromised by using a conventional detergent that is scent- and dye-free; however, neither Recycla nor her husband has been totally satisfied with this one either. It’s the worst of both worlds — it’s not organic, nor does it do a great job with cleaning their laundry.
Getting back to the stinky athletic clothes, Recycla perused the laundry aisle at her local Target and decided to try a brand that was conventional, but at least was concentrated, so far less detergent was needed for each load. Unfortunately, the detergent contained a very strong perfume that lingered and could be smelled long after the clean laundry was folded and put away. Recycla wasn’t pleased with the scent, but at least her running clothes didn’t reek before she even went for a run.
Last weekend, both of Recycla’s daughters developed strange rashes on various parts of their bodies. One daughter, as mentioned before, has allergies, but since the other daughter also developed a rash, Recycla assumed that the girls had picked up some horrible disease. She called the pediatrician and took the girls in for an appointment. The doctor took one look at the girls and asked if they were using a new soap or lotion or laundry detergent. Yep, both girls are allergic to the new, heavily-perfumed laundry detergent. Recycla isn’t throwing the stuff out, but she’ll save it for when she washes cleaning rags and other things that won’t be touching her family’s skin.
So now Recycla is on the hunt for a new detergent — one that will actually clean and remove the smells left by running, biking, soccer, and other sports, while containing no strong perfumes or harsh chemicals. She honestly doesn’t know what laundry detergent will offer all of the above, so is hoping that her fellow Eco Warriors will have some suggestions.
Tell the Eco Women: What do you use to wash your clothes? Are you happy with this product?
Posted in clothes, health, house stuff
A trend that is big in blogging these days is some sort of gimmick that gets people’s attention. One well-known example of this was the Uniform Project, in which a blogger wore the same dress every day for a year, but then made a point to accessorize it 365 different ways. (Actually, she had seven dresses — one for each day of the week.)
Along those same lines comes a new blog called One Dress Protest. The twist on this one is that the blogger is not only wearing the same dress all year, she has intentionally pared her wardrobe down to the very basics and will not be changing her look from day-to-day with accessories. She is encouraging folks to join her, if even for only one month.
At first, Recycla thought that there was no way she could do this, but then she realized that she actually could. As it happens, she pretty much has already done so. Recycla’s wardrobe is nearly all black — pants, shirts, dresses, skirts, sweaters, and shoes. That’s not to say that she doesn’t have other colors in her wardrobe, but if you were to look in her closet or dresser, you’d mostly see black. Recycla wears so much black that she actually had to challenge herself to wear other colors earlier this year. Sometimes, Recycla gets into clothing ruts and wears the same outfits over and over — black t-shirt and black crops one day, black t-shirt (same style, different shirt) and other black crops the next day. So if necessary, she could easily pare her wardrobe down to just a few essentials.
But… Recycla did this when she traveled with her family in April. For 12 days, she had only four or five outfits, which she washed repeatedly on her trip. And you know what? It got boring. Even though she loved the clothes she was wearing, she lamented her lack of choice when she looked in her suitcase. But, when she got home and was faced with her full closet again, she didn’t really branch out very much, again preferring to stick with her basic wardrobe of mostly black clothes.
So Recycla is pondering the One Dress Protest in some form (perhaps one shirt, one pair of pants) and wondering if she could do it for a month or even just week. She might give it a try later this year and see how it goes.
Tell the Eco Women: Could you do the One Dress Protest?
Posted in clothes, issues, living green on a budget, websites & blogs
The Eco Women are active and athletic Eco Warriors — they run, walk, bike, hike, swim, and there’s even a black belt in karate in the crew. With all this athleticism going on, as you can imagine, the Eco Women have to buy some specialized athletic clothes and gear. Recycla has been thinking about this a lot lately, as she is a newly-avid runner and has been trying to figure out what she needs (good sneakers, for sure) and what she can live without. Along the way, she has been on the lookout for Earth-friendly sneakers, running pants, technical shirts, and more.
As Enviro Girl said in her post yesterday, the most environmentally friendly way to shop for clothes is to buy them at consignment shops and thrift stores. However, this is not always feasible — often, Recycla cannot find things in her size and, in the case of running shoes, it’s best for runners to get properly fitted with new shoes at a running shop. Running shoes break down after about 500 miles of use, so buying them used means that you’re probably buying shoes that are past their prime and won’t provide adequate support.
[Luckily, when you are done with your old sneakers, you don't have to throw them away. Some running shops will accept old sneakers and will recycle them for you. If you don't have that option, there's always the Nike Reuse a Shoe program, which will recycle any old sneakers into new products.]
Recycla has found a number of resources to share with you today.
To begin with, REI and Patagonia are two big name companies that not only sell Earth-friendly gear, but also are committed to reducing their carbon footprint and giving back to non-profits. You can shop with them knowing that you are getting high quality, reliable products that are not made in sweatshops around the globe. Options range from organic cotton to sustainable bamboo fibers, as well as fleece made from recycled plastic bottles.
Brooks, Simple, and New Balance all make eco-friendly shoes that include recycled and sustainable materials and are manufactured with a focus on eliminating waste. Best of all, some of these shoes are biodegradable.
For those of you who enjoy yoga, Gaiam offers a nice selection of organic clothes that will help you feel comfortable as you get to Downward Dog.
These are just a few of the many options available. The great news is that new eco athletic products are coming onto the market regularly, so the offerings are far more numerous than they were just a few years ago.
Tell the Eco Women: What is your sport of choice? Have you found any great eco-friendly gear?
The Eco Women are not employed by any of the companies mentioned, nor were they asked to do this review.
Posted in clothes
Enviro Girl was reminded last Friday why she adores shopping at consignment shops. First, it’s the most environmentally friendly way to shop. When you buy used items, you reduce your environmental impact in a major way. Used clothes don’t require new materials, energy or resources to manufacture. They also don’t require new packaging or additional shipping. (Consider for a moment the impact of cotton grown in America, shipped to China for processing, then exported to Vietnam where workers will cut and sew the cloth, then the clothing gets shipped back across the ocean to America to a warehouse where it will then get transported to various stores to be sold to customers.) Buying new clothes uses a lot of resources and energy. If you can reuse clothes by buying them used, it’s much better for the planet.
Second, Enviro Girl enjoys shopping at consignment stores because of the quality. Thrift stores have pretty low standards: no holes, tears or stains. Consignment stores have higher standards–they only take clothing currently in fashion and generally take higher-end brands and quality. The owners of consignment stores hand select the best offerings from their customers and set it out on the store floor in an appealing manner. Thrift shops tend to be slapped together, customers have to really dig around to find good things smushed in among the rest. Enviro Girl is an incredibly lazy shopper, so when the store assumes the burden of the work for her, she’s always grateful.
Shopping consignment costs a little more than shopping at a thrift store, but Enviro Girl still thinks it’s a phenomenal deal. She’s bought sweaters, blouses and skirts for $15-$20 that retail at places like Banana Republic and Ann Taylor for $50-$80. Sure, she’d pay less for those things at a thrift store, but that’s provided she could even find them at a thrift store!
Consignment shops are owned by people passionate about fashion. Enviro Girl needs all the help she can get on that front, and really appreciates the relationship she has with her local consignment store owner. She’s set in a dressing room, clothes in her size are passed through to her, and advice on how to wear clothes is freely handed out. The store owner knows what’s hot and what’s not, takes into consideration the customers’ lifestyle and age, and recommends clothing that the customers will get the most mileage out of.
Alternately, if you are a fashionista, consignment stores offer you an opportunity to unload things you’ve grown tired of and make some money back. Enviro Girl knows many women who take their clothes to consignment stores and earn hundreds of dollars that they can use for new clothes. Consignment stores are a brilliant combination of swapping and recycling.
Finally, Enviro Girl likes consignment stores because of the variety. It’s like an entire mall of stores under one single roof. On her last visit to her favorite consignment store, she bought a sweater by L.L. Bean, a skirt from Banana Republic, a blouse from The Limited, a necklace from Chicos and a sweater by Ann Taylor–for under $100. Instead of having to pay full price at a whole bunch of different stores, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of choices (another part of shopping that Enviro Girl hates), she was able to go to one locally owned and operated shop and get all of these things.
If you haven’t shopped consignment yet, give it a try. If you do shop consignment, tell us about it!
Enviro Girl loves the selection and service at Chic to Chic.
With fall here, Recycla is delighted to put away summer clothes and start wearing sweaters, scarves, and other cute clothes. For weeks, while natives of her home state of Virginia have suffered through endless 90+ degree days, she has been flipping through catalogs and gazing with longing at page after page of cool weather clothes. Luckily, the weather is now more seasonal, with highs in the low 70s and lows in the 40s, with cooler weather predicted soon.
So yes, Recycla is ready to do a little fall shopping, but first she needs to be a good Eco Warrior and do some advance planning. In fact, she’s guessing that most people reading this need to do a little recon of their closets before going shopping. So here are Recycla’s tips for getting your fall wardrobe into shape:
First of all, go through your closet and your dresser. Pull everything out. Is there stuff you never wear? Then put it in a bag to donate to charity so that someone else can get some use out of it. Don’t donate stained clothes that can never be cleaned. Instead, turn those items into rags.
Next, repair anything that needs a new button, fixed hem, etc. and clean anything that needs cleaning. Hopefully, when you put your woolen clothes away last spring, they were clean. If not, make a pile for the dry cleaners — click here to find a list of eco dry cleaners in your area. (If you have a problem with moths, click here for non-toxic ways to deal with them.)
Are you using a motley collection of plastic and wire hangers? Consider switching to eco hangers. Nicer hangers do a better job of holding your clothes up and don’t leave funny bumps and indentations.
Recycla is a big fan of an organized closet; so much so that her friends and family have called on her on occasion to come deal with their closets. An organized closet makes it easy for you to quickly find what you’re looking for when you’re getting dressed in the morning. Recycla’s general rule of thumb is to hang things in groups — shirts with shirts, pants with pants, etc. She goes further and hangs things in ascending order by size — short sleeve shirts, then 3/4 sleeve shirts, then long sleeve shirts, then skirts, then dresses, then pants. After that, she groups colors together. Since most of her wardrobe is black, this is pretty easy, but she does have a few items in brights. (Those who know Recycla in real life, try not to faint from shock.)
Down on the floor of your closet, pull out all of your shoes and then sweep or vacuum the floor. How you organize your shoes is up to you, but at the very least, put them in sort sort of neat order with pairs matched up and types of shoes together. If your shoes need polishing, do it. If some of the heels need replacing, take them to the shoe repair place. Yes, shoes can be repaired! Doing so saves you money in the long run and saves Planet Earth’s resources.
By repairing and cleaning and generally taking care of your clothes, they’ll last longer and won’t need to be replaced as quickly. And by keeping things organized, you don’t lose track of what you have.
Now that you have organized your closet and dresser, take stock of what you have and figure out what you need. Do you have the basics to cover what you need to wear day in and day out? If not, make a list and go shopping.
When you go shopping, try to buy quality items that will last a long time. (Difficult to do in this era of nearly disposable clothes.) Some companies, such as Patagonia, are known for their excellent corporate eco ethic, so if it works for your budget, support these companies.
Also keep in mind that most people have far more in their closets than they ever wear. How many sweaters do you really need? Think about ways you can simplify your wardrobe. Consider experimenting to see what you actually wear and what just hangs there month after month. In the past couple of months, Recycla has seen several articles about people who are going on a clothing diet for a specified period of time and not buying anything new. She’s also heard of people who are trying to live with minimal wardrobes — such as six core articles of clothing.
Recycla isn’t staying that you should live an austere existence with only a few outfits, but wants you to examine your life and your wardrobe and see if there’s room for change. She personally tends to wear mostly black — primarily because it’s easy and she doesn’t have to think when she’s dressing in the pre-dawn hours — and adds color with accessories. That way, she can live with fewer items of clothing. But, that’s just Recycla’s way of doing things; her children think that she always looks funeral-ready and could stand to wear more color.
Tell the Eco Women: What’s your personal style? Are you preppy, sporty, trendy, or something else? What’s your favorite fall fashion this year?
Posted in clothes
The cost of school supplies like pencils and notebooks can run up to $100 if you have a few kids heading back to school this fall. Tack on book fees, activity fees, gym shoes and lunches and things start to get expensive. According to the National Retail Federation, the average family will spend around $606 on school supplies and related expenses. Enviro Girl has three kids going to school full-time this fall and even with recycling many of last year’s supplies and leftovers she shelled out $150 on school supplies. But she won’t spend $606 getting her sons back in the classroom and here’s why:
Instead of back-to-school shopping, she’s back-to-school swapping.
Her oldest son will attend parochial school this fall. The students are required to wear uniforms, so he’ll need blue or white collared shirts and navy or tan khakis. The school secretary advised her not to go shopping until after “School Swap Day.”
Two weeks before school, all the parents donate their children’s outgrown uniforms. Parents in need of new sizes will find everything necessary for the school year laid out on cafeteria tables in the school commons. In the spirit of Christian love and sharing, there is no charge. The participants are simply expected to take what they need and leave behind what they don’t. They’ve done this for years, saving families thousands of dollars. The school secretary explained to Enviro Girl that each family gets a brown shopping sack per student and is encouraged to load it up with school clothes. Anything left behind at the end of the day goes into a storage closet until next year’s swap. Enviro Girl imagines this works quite well because in the world of school uniforms, no fashion trends come into play and a blue polo shirt from five years ago or last month looks pretty much the same.
Enviro Girl has friends who do a back-to-school swap in their neighborhood. It’s the same concept, only instead of tables full of white and blue polo shirts and navy and tan khakis, there are tables full of snow pants and coats, mittens, sports equipment, blue jeans and shirts — all organized by size and gender. They don’t keep track of what you give and get in this neighborhood, but generally everyone donates and receives the same amount of clothing — hand-me-downs and hand-me-ups.
In tough economic times, clothing swaps are becoming the rage. Heck, Clothing Swap even has its very own web site with tips on how to organize a successful swap event for women’s clothing. Enviro Girl’s town coordinates swaps of team t-shirts and uniforms and field trip t-shirts for the elementary school. Not only does this save people money, it reduces the demand for new things, thus reducing our consumption of more resources like energy and water and cotton. Nothing is greener than reusing, making clothes swapping a much more environmentally friendly practice than clothes shopping.
Enviro Girl has no plans to swap for her two younger sons this fall since they’ll inherit their big brother’s hand-me-downs in turn. She will buy them new gym shoes, but that’s a post for another day. Meanwhile, if you aren’t swapping yet, Enviro Girl encourages you to get started and get greener!
